


Definitely Worthy

by makgeolli



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Deviates From Canon, Female Friendship, Gen, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Post-Book: The Hanging Tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 02:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16631525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makgeolli/pseuds/makgeolli
Summary: In which Guleed gets tangled up in River business, claims a magical sword, slays a sea serpent and joins the Folly. You know, just normal copper things.“I’m not a man.” I say, into the pensive silence that follows. "And what does well-born even translate to now, anyway?""No, you’re better. You’re like Thor.” Peter grins. “You know. Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of –”“Yes, yes, I get it.” Sometimes it was better to cut him off before he got into full flow; not that this stops Peter.“Now you can add ‘definitely worthy’ to your resume,” he continues, undeterred, and I groan.





	Definitely Worthy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morvidra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morvidra/gifts).



Most stories - you know, those that begin with the ‘m’ word, or what my guv would less delicately term ‘weird bollocks’ – begin with swords. Like the one that King Arthur supposedly drew from the stone (Peter’s still figuring out if it’s even possible to cast the kind of spell to recognise _one_ specific beardy bloke out of hundreds) - or the kind that conveniently turn up in water bodies, either found - like that one in Sweden, though the jury's out on it being magic - or given to you by the demi-monde, as a favour of sorts. Though I can’t particularly see Lady Ty doing that. Besides, she’s probably got better things to do.

 

This one does, too. But probably not in the way that you’d expect.

 

Because it doesn’t actually begin with a sword. That comes later.

 

It begins with a river (don’t they always, these days?). Specifically, two of them. And me. 

 

* * *

 

Friday night is shaping up to be a quiet weekend – just the way I like it. I’m off from patrol car duty, with a good book waiting to be read, when my mobile goes off. It’s not the guv or Peter, so that’s _probably_ good news, in the greater scheme of things.

 

It’s Beverley, which could mean anything from girls’ night watching really bad horror movies whilst snacking on macarons baked by Molly, or… … on the _other_ end of the spectrum, poking around dilapidated buildings looking for things that go bump in the night. I’m hoping it’s the former, and not the latter. A girl only has so many good headscarves and jackets in her wardrobe, and I’m not sacrificing any more, even if Molly is aces at patching them up after.

 

“So, I might need your help with something? It’s unofficial. River business.” Bev says, on the other end of the line. Traffic rumbles in the background, punctuating her words with the belligerence of London drivers.

 

“You realise that doesn’t actually clarify anything,” I hedge. _Unofficial_ and _river business_ , in my experience, don’t go well together. You never quite know exactly what you’re getting into with any of the Rivers. “This _is_ above board, right?”

 

Bev makes a frustrated sound. “It’s nothing illegal, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s … hard to explain. I need to check in on something. Just a feeling that I can’t shake. I _could_ do it by myself, but… it’d be nice to have some unofficial backup. Just in case.”

 

That… does not sound reassuring.

 

I get why she’s asking me, though. Nightingale’s out of the question, because _unofficial_ means the Folly can’t be involved. So is Peter. But I’m not Folly, not really, not in the way that counts among the demi-monde, and so… _third most qualified_ , I think, and sigh.

 

“Fine. I’m in. In an unofficial capacity. Though if my jacket gets ruined again, you’re buying me a new one.” 

 

I’ll admit it; it’s mildly flattering (and alarming, in equal measure) to be asked for help by a River – and this was not how I saw my weekend going.

 

* * *

 

 

Bev picks me up first thing in the morning. 

 

"Morning," she says, far too chipper for that time of day. Maybe it's a River thing; all I know is that it's far too early for my liking. The sun’s not even up, and won’t be for a while yet, what with the rain pelting steadily down and the Picanto’s windscreen wipers working overtime. Nowhere else does cold, grey and depressing quite like London can, and for a moment I think wistfully of sun, clear skies and burnished heat for days. Then it passes, as Bev hands me a thermos full of piping hot tea (with milk and sugar, just  how I like it) and a Tupperware of halal sandwiches, having dropped by the Folly first for grub. The sandwiches are hummus and pickles; apparently Molly’s in an experimental mood). And also mentions, when I’m taking a grateful sip, “We’re going to Scotland.”

 

“Pull the other one.” I say, once I’ve managed to avoid death by choking on tea.

 

“I wish.”

 

“In this weather?” I gesture. I half-doubt we’ll make it to the M6 in one piece. The weather’s practically chucking it down outside, and the Picanto is _tiny_.

 

“Yes.” Her voice is steely, and somehow it rings with _vestigia_ – freshly cut grass, cinnamon, carbonated fizz – and I buckle down for the ride.

 

Scotland – specifically, Glasgow – is at least seven hours from London by car, or so Google Maps helpfully tells me when I key in the navpoint. Seven hours, made longer by inclement weather, petrol top-ups, roadworks and slow drivers. Bev fills me in along the way, and I get a condensed version of Scottish river history.

 

* * *

 

 

Scotland’s rivers are famously temperamental. Not as established as the Thames, but still to be reckoned with. To make things more complicated, the Scots have different names for different types of water sources. Waters, are apparently, smaller rivers. Burns refer to streams, and due to the quaint anglicisations of Gaelic, there are also some rivers in Scotland literally named “river river”, like the River Avon (something that Peter would probably be terribly amused by). More prominent rivers include the Tay, the Clyde, the Spey, the Don, the Dee, the Annan and the Nith, amongst many others. The Clyde is where we’re headed.

 

“Still doesn’t quite explain _why_ we’re going there, though.” I add. We've stopped for lunch. Molly's packed us a veritable hamper of food fit for a small army (there's tea, fruit, crackers, cheese, and vegetarian Yorkshire pasties with peas and mashed potatoes), along with a note that wished us a smooth trip, and indicated that the food was halal. She'd also included a sketch of a car trundling down the highway, heading towards the hills, which have rivers snaking down their sides, slivers of blue against the green. 

 

“It’s not even in the same watershed. Isn’t it a little like going into someone else’s manor without calling ahead first?”

 

Bev pokes moodily at her pasty with a fork, spearing up peas. “Yes and no. Clyde hasn’t been around for a while. It’s complicated, though. And difficult to explain.”

 

I can tell she doesn’t really want to talk about it, but I figure – since she’s making me travel seven hours up to Scotland, way out of my manor and then some – I can at least try to probe a little. Besides, the copper in me is curious; we’re just wired that way. If Bev doesn’t want to talk about it; she won’t entertain me. I’ve known her long enough for that.

 

“So… you were friends, then?” I try my sympathetic voice.

 

She gives me a look that indicates that she knows damn well what I’m trying to do, but sighs. “Sort of. Mum didn’t approve, not really. But Clyde was good fun. Anyway, the river – the water itself – hasn’t been doing that well, and I think it might’ve been why Clyde left.”

 

Rivers needed their _genius loci_ , and so Bev looked out for the Clyde, now and then when she could. Nothing official – it was all under the radar, in case the neighbouring Annan got testy about it. Over time, she’d learned to read the Clyde’s moods about as well as her own namesake, so far away in Worcester Park. It had been a niggling sense of unease that’d made her take the long drive up north.

 

“Maybe someone’s been messing around,” she concluded, neatly cutting into the express lane ahead of a trundling jalopy, “but whatever it is and whoever they are, they’re not doing it on Clyde’s patch.”

 

* * *

 

 

We chug into Dumbarton hours later. It’s still raining – but now it’s more like a drizzle, the rain hanging like grey mist over Levengrove Park. It’s good cover, though, and the rain means fewer people outside, which is definitely helpful when there might be weird bollocks involved. 

 

We decide to do a tactical assessment of the situation first, just to be on the safe side, in case it turns out it’s something else that requires the cavalry – Nightingale – to come charging in. Well, it’s more like _I_ decide to do a tactical assessment, to Bev’s gentle derision.

 

“You sound like Peter,” she says, half-mocking, half-amused, and I roll my eyes. 

 

“Look, if it’s really weird bollocks –“

 

“Better to be safe than sorry, I know, I know,” Bev nods. “Go ahead, do your thing.”

 

The park's bounded by two rivers - the Clyde and the Leven. We split up, the better to survey the area. Bev scouts the shore of the Clyde nearer the city, while I head out to the peninsula.  We make good time walking up and down the shoreline, which is deserted, windy and offers a good view of Dumbarton Castle – when not obscured by gauzy sheets of rain. It also turns out to be relatively normal, as far as background levels of _vestigia_ are concerned. If I concentrate hard enough, I can pick out the distant clatter of heavy machinery (the Clyde was associated with shipbuilding, and was also an industrial river) and the earthier smell of sweat and leather, but it’s nowhere strong enough to definitely indicate traces of supernatural activity. There's nothing out of the ordinary on Bev's end, either, judging from the smiley emoji she texts me, five minutes later. 

 

“It seems safe enough,” I give Bev a thumbs-up when we meet up again, and she nods. She’s already kitted out in her swimming gear under a windbreaker, which she peels off and leaves on a park bench.

 

“I won’t be long,” she says, and that’s all the warning she gives before she dives into the river and is gone. The Clyde’s surface ripples in her wake.

 

I scan the waters, but they’re murky – typical of urban rivers. Also, there’s no spotting a River unless they let you. I settle down onto a park bench to wait.

 

With luck, it'll just be a routine River thing (is there  _ever_ such normalcy when it comes to the Rivers, though?), and we'll be on our way. Hopefully to the café with the cheerful awnings I spotted on the main street - it had looked promising enough. It's cold, and I wish she'd given me a more accurate estimate - "won't be long" in Bev-speak could mean anything from fifteen minutes to three hours, never mind that she'd protested that the long wait had just been  _one time_ and an  _accident_ (tipsy boaters in her brook, I didn't ask). 

 

The minutes drag. I take another sip from my thermos. Check my messages - Peter's still mildly cranky he can't be involved, while Jennifer would like an update if we happen to see any kelpies. 

 

Five minutes turns into ten turns into twenty, and still no sign of Bev.

 

* * *

 

 

By degrees, the wind turns sharper; there’s a bite to it that hadn’t been there before. Then the surface of the Clyde churns, violently, frothing white, and at approximately the same time, the  _vestigia_ hits me full in the face; blood and salt and metal, accompanied by the stink of rot, layered thick enough to make me want to hurl. I gag; bile rises, and I choke it down.  _Shit_. I jump to my feet, scanning the water for any sign of Bev. 

 

“Bev!” I shout, but it’s useless; she can’t hear me down in the river. 

 

_Kelpies_ , the part of me that  isn't panicking thinks, remembering the business with the BMWs and Peter's scrapes with the country unicorns -  _wish they had a procedural book for that -_ but then the Folly hadn't had one for taking the Faceless Man in either, unless you counted Nightingale, and well,  _he's not here_. 

 

Bugger. 

 

But what I've learned is that the things that go bump can be stopped, too. 

 

So I do the only thing I can, which is quite possibly _also_ the stupidest thing I’ve ever done: I shed my jacket and shoes, and go for it, grimly grateful for all those swimming lessons in primary school. I can practically hear Seawoll screaming bloody murder in the back of my head as I do so, probably something along the lines of _I thought I’d trained you better than that_ , but honestly, it’s all a blur. _Sorry, guv_ , I think, and then the surface of the Clyde is rushing up to meet me.

 

There’s cold, and there’s _bloody sodding cold_ , and the Clyde is it. For a moment, it’s as if the breath has seized tight in my lungs and I _can’t_ move, and then somewhere common-sense kicks in, it’s swim or drown. Water churns around me; something slimy brushes past and wraps around my wrist, snarling it tight. I can’t see much in the murk, and I thrash blindly, trying to pull free. It tightens, and I’m being dragged down, down, down, towards the river bed.  

 

My lungs are burning. I grope about blindly with my free hand, scrabbling in the muck, looking for something, _anything_ , to try and cut myself free. _I don’t want to drown_ , _I don’t want to drown_ , is a litany that goes uselessly around and around my head, a thought that’s becoming harder and harder to hang on to the further we go.

 

My hand closes around something – a stick? Holding it _hurts_ , a sharp sear of pain that cuts deep into my palm. I pull, scrabbling madly. It jolts free. I swing it, drunk with pain and the lack of air and the cold; it _thunks_ against whatever’s holding me tight, and the thing in the water _writhes_. Another coil loops around my leg, and I lash at it, too. The thing in the water lets go, and I thrash towards the surface, exhaustion weighing my limbs down.

 

I take in deep gulps of the air, breathing hard. It’s so cold.

 

“Sahra!” Someone’s shouting, somewhere nearby, and there’s a lot of splashing. 

 

So tired. Can't find Bev. 

 

“Sahra!” Closer now. Something touches my shoulder, and I flinch away – or try to – but I’m sinking, now. “Guleed. It’s me.”

 

Bev.

 

“You’re alright,” I slur, relieved, and she laughs, pulling me close.

 

I don’t know how we get to shore, but we do, somehow. Bev hauls me up onto the park bench, wrapping her windbreaker around me as best she can. I can’t stop shivering. Everything seems oddly far away and closed off. I stare at the Clyde; the water foams bloody against the shore.

 

“You, uh. Might want to let that go. You’re bleeding,” she says, and I look down. My hand’s wrapped around the hilt of a sword. It’s caked with mud and dripping blood and water, but it’s definitely sword-shaped. I know this because it’s literally on fire. White flames run down the blade, but there’s no heat.

 

I let go, and it clatters to the bench. I catch a whiff of _vestigia_ as it goes – ozone, and the sound of a smith’s hammer striking an anvil – which fades to nothing, and the oddest sense of _loss_.  

 

“Right, off to the hospital with you,” Bev says, and she wraps it up, careful not to touch it.

 

* * *

 

 

The doctors accept the story Bev sells them with a minimum of scepticism – she must’ve turned up the River glamour to maximum – but she still insists that I spend the night at the hospital, never mind that the only real injury sustained is a deep cut to my palm.

 

“It’s my fault you got dragged into this. I’m sorry.” She bites her lip, fingers gentle against the bandage that's wrapped around my palm.

 

“You didn’t force me into anything,” I counter, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze with my good hand. Stitches, tea, warm blankets and some painkillers have done me a world of good, and the shock’s wearing off. “I agreed to this. On my own. That’s not answering my question, though. What happened?”

 

“That thing you fought in the water - that was a sea serpent.”

 

A pause, as we both digest the implications of this.

 

“You mean, like an actual…” my voice trails off. “What.”

 

“It was sick. I think the river – there probably wasn’t enough oxygen for it to survive – and I was trying to get it to go back, out to the open water. You saw how well that went.”

 

Bev’s theory was that the sea serpent had gotten lost, and wound up in the Clyde, where it wasn’t supposed to be. Pollution, and the drastic change in salinity had done a number on it – the Clyde wasn’t exactly the cleanest river in Scotland – and that had probably driven it into a frenzied state.

 

“They don’t normally swim in fresh water, after all. I’ve only heard of them, though, never actually run into one – “and there went the environmentalist in Bev; really, she was just as much of a nerd as Peter about the things she loved, except that Bev was infinitesimally cooler about it.

 

“Well, I definitely know two things. Seawoll’s going to go spare, and Peter’ll be ecstatic.” Explaining this to the guv was going to be fun. Which reminded me: what was I going to do with a sword?

 

The sword in question was currently wrapped in a beach towel and safely stowed in the boot of Bev’s Picanto. The hilt was covered in barnacles – they’d cut me when I’d grabbed onto it, hence the stitches.

 

“You know, when you said there’s no one at home in the river… you’re sure that no one _was_ at home, right? It’s just… convenient. That a magic - no, a weird sword turns up when there’s a sea serpent on the loose.” Maybe it’s the copper in me, but I smell a rat. Or a fish, in this case. Discworld has a term for this kind of thing (I’m never telling Peter I read Pratchett, he’ll never let me hear the end of it) – narrative causality, when the narrative runs the show, and _this_ seems exactly the sort of thing that narrative causality would do. If it existed. Which I’m not quite sure about, at this point. I mean,  _sea serpents exist and I killed one_ ,so I'm not sure what's realistically appropriate anymore. 

 

“Clyde hasn’t been back.” Bev shakes her head. “I’d know. But –“ and a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, “Rivers and swords go way back, you know.”

 

* * *

 

To Peter’s chagrin, it’s not Excalibur. Molly doesn't seem to think so, especially after she'd disdainfully swept away with it - and returned it gleaming and de-barnacled.

 

"The sword's got to be in the records somewhere," Peter persists. Molly scoffs, glides off into the library, and returns with a stack of books piled dangerously high. Peter is still not allowed in the magical library, and with Nightingale out of town on some inspector’s conference (so’s Seawoll, which puts off the inevitable shouting by a few more days – for which I’m thankful), Molly’s the only one who’s remotely qualified to do so. 

 

She selects a thick atlas from the stack, flips it open and jabs a finger squarely at the map. We peer at it. The River Clyde snakes down from past Glasgow to empty into the Firth of Clyde. Another book thumps down besides it; an encyclopaedia of places in the UK, and Molly flips to the entry under Clyde, which was previously known as the _Clut_ in early medieval Cumbric language. The _Clut_ was also home to _Teymas Ystrad Clut_ , or the early Britonic Kingdom of Strathclyde.

 

“Yes, but where’s this going?” Peter’s clearly impatient, and slightly miffed that Molly’d rejected his theory about the sword not being Excalibur. Or he could also have been peeved that it didn’t light up the way it had when I’d picked it up. He’d swung it around several times, endangering the furniture, to see if he could coax it into flame. (I’d seen him from the kitchen, and he’d been making lightsabre noises, only without the fancy light effects. Molly had filmed it; I suppose it was going to end up on social media at some point, probably her Instagram.)

 

Molly shoots him a Look, and he sensibly shuts up. She reaches for another tome in her stack. This one turns out to be an early Folly practitioner’s translation of the Welsh triads into English. Apparently, Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain, had wielded a sword called _Dyrnwyn_ , or White-Hilt. The same Rhydderch Hael had also been an early ruler of the Kingdom of Strathclyde.

 

“That doesn’t mean it can’t be Excalibur,” Peter argues. Molly sighs. She gestures to me to pick it up. I do, and the _vestigia_ is stronger than ever – firelight glancing off armour and the distant screams of a battlefield. The sword flares like a beacon; and I have to put it down or blind myself.

 

Molly points to a line in the translation: _Rhydderch the Generous was happy to offer his blade, and if drawn by a well-born or worthy man, the entire blade would blaze with fire._ As if to prove her point, she pulls out another book, one on Arthurian mythology, and jabs at another portion. We lean forward to read it. Excalibur was engraved on both sides; _take me up_ and _cast me away_ ; also most sources allege that the water body most closely associated with it is Dozmary Pool. She gestures to the sword on the table as if to prove her point. 

 

Molly's right, I think. The provenance of the sword checks out - the Clyde, after all, had been central to the founding of the old Britonic kingdom (rivers and kings, it seemed, went hand in hand, same as rivers and swords). And despite the sword's tendency to light up when picked up by what it deemed was the right person, there were no runes or engravings on it - nothing to indicate that it was magical. Other than the  _vestigia,_ of course. And the fact that, despite the thousands of years in between the fall of Strathclyde and now,  _Dyrnwyn_ wasn't rusty, and still had an edge sharp enough to slice through a lot of things like a knife through butter. 

 

Not that knowing what the sword was, and where it came from made anything less weird. Odds are, based on the social conventions back in the heyday of  _Teymas Ystrad Clut,_  I'm probably not who good old Rhydderch had in mind as the new owner of his sword. 

 

“I’m not a man.” I say, into the pensive silence that follows. "And what does well-born even translate to now, anyway?" 

 

“No, you’re better. You’re like Thor.” Peter grins. “You know. Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of –”

 

“Yes, yes, I get it.” Sometimes it was better to cut him off before he got into full flow; not that this stops Peter.

 

“Now you can add ‘definitely worthy’ to your resume,” he continues, undeterred, and I groan.

 

* * *

 

 

Turns out, having a magic sword almost automatically fast-tracks you into the Folly. Who’d have known?

 

My old guv was very emphatically Not Pleased with this latest development. “Never thought I’d lose you to weird bollocks,” he complained. “If you ever want to come back, the door’s open. What’ve they got you doing now, eh?”

 

Mostly, it’s Latin. And duelling practice with Peter and Molly – this mostly meant me parrying various spells with _Dyrnwyn_ , and trying not to get jabbed too much by Molly, with varying levels of success, while Toby snoozes in a corner and Bev provides running commentary.

 

Definitely weird bollocks.

 

But in a good way.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Inspired by this article [ in which a girl finds an ancient sword in a Swedish lake.](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-45763186/swedish-girl-discovers-ancient-sword-in-lake)  
> It's not that Peter isn't worthy; Dyrnwyn was picked up first by Guleed after a few thousand years, and it chose her, because it saw something that resonated with it. Also, the lightsabre noises probably annoyed it.
> 
> Fun fact on Wikipedia, which I stumbled over while researching for this fic: the Clyde is the second-longest river in Scotland, and the eighth-longest in the UK.


End file.
